


Lasthome

by xpityx



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 18:55:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18976393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xpityx/pseuds/xpityx
Summary: Jon stood at the entrance to the tent, trying not to shiver too obviously. He had nothing but his smallclothes on under his cloak, as did the thirty or so others he stood with. There were a few young ones, nervous about their first time in the water, and also the hardened adults who did this every year. Jon should have been in the latter category but, even after a year with the wildlings, he still occasionally stumbled across rights of passage or traditions he had never heard of.He thought Tormund occasionally made them up: he’d thought he’d been makingthisone up.





	Lasthome

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not even _in_ this fandom, *sigh*. I'm blaming this one on the gif makers of Tumblr - y'all are too convincing by far.
> 
> Beta'd by my babe SlumberousTrash.

 

Jon stood at the entrance to the tent, trying not to shiver too obviously. He had nothing but his smallclothes on under his cloak, as did the thirty or so others he stood with. There were a few young ones, nervous about their first time in the water, and also the hardened adults who did this every year. Jon should have been in the latter category but, even after a year with the wildlings, he still occasionally stumbled across rights of passage or traditions he had never heard of.

 

He thought Tormund occasionally made them up; he’d thought he’d been making _this_ one up. What kind of people go for a swim in a freezing river, after all?

 

He understood the principle: falling into ice water was easy, but getting out was hard. If you’d never experienced the shock of the cold then you were likely to panic and drown, but if you’d done it before and survived then you had a better chance. This was the safest way to learn: in spring, when the ice was thin. Great sticks had been driven into the river bed to stop anyone being carried under the ice that hadn’t been cleared, and everyone who was going in had someone on the bank whose job it was to make sure they came out the other side.

 

“Ready, little crow?” Tormund asked from behind him, and Jon put a little more effort into trying not to shiver. There was a girl, maybe 10 years old, standing beside him who seemed completely unconcerned by the cold.

 

“I am, though I still think you’ve all invented this just to get me in the water.”

 

“I don’t think anyone wants to see your shrunken balls that badly, Jon,” Tormund replied and the girl snorted. Then Tormund’s big hands were taking his cloak from him, and Jon stepped out of his boots and onto the snow. It was three quick steps to the river and he plunged in before he could think too hard about it.

 

The cold was like nothing he’d ever experienced before: it tore his breath from him and stopped his heart. It was colder than death had been.

 

A sharp foot connected with his leg and he was alive again, fighting through the icy water to the far bank with his adopted brothers and sisters, hauling himself out of the other side and rolling in the snow to get warm again, as he’d been instructed. Then it was back the way he’d come, but this time he remained aware of the people around him, shouting encouragement to each other as they plunged back in, the churn of the water as thirty bodies forced their way back to the warmth that waited for them on the river bank.

 

“It’s alright, you did well,” Tormund was saying as he threw his cloak over Jon’s damp shoulders, briskly rubbing at his arms and hands. Ghost was leaning all his weight against his side, presumably in an effort to be helpful, making Jon list slightly to the right.

 

“That—was—the—stupidest—thing—I’ve—ever—done,” Jon bit out between his chattering teeth. He could see the little girl that had gone in the water next to him—Leni, he thought her name was—laughing with her family.

 

“More stupid than catching a wight?” Tormund asked, his bushy eyebrows raised high.

 

“Yes.”

 

Tormund laughed and Jon leaned a little closer into his warmth.

 

Just another day on the edge of the map, another day as a free man.

 

 

 

The village they’d built was a two day walk south of Hardhome. It sat in a small dell and was sheltered somewhat from the year-round harsh winds. In winter though the snow drifted in great droves that meant that for two months of the year it was impossible to leave their tiny wooden houses, the drifts heavy and thick above and around them. Even those homes built closest to the mountain where the hot springs ran were swaddled in snow.

 

Jon would have gone mad that first winter if it hadn’t been for Tormund and his two girls: Ineya, who was now nearly 12, and Garran, eight. There had seemed to be no question that Jon would live with them. Most of the unmarried folk lived in the Great Hall at the centre of the village and Jon had expected to join them, but once his house was finished Tormund had told him to take the north wall for his bed as it was warmer, and that was that. Ghost had seemed happy with the arrangement, sleeping beside whoever he decided would be most comfortable on any given night.

 

The elders of the village had predicted that the trade-off for lack of wind would be the snow-in, so the month before real winter had set in had been a never ending list of meat to salt, kelp to dry and bedding to clean. Jon had found the work soothing, but the stillness of the days once they were snowed in had quickly begun to wear on him. He would never know if they had sensed his unease, but the two girls, usually so quiet, had quickly decided to make him the centre of their games, and Tormund had asked to be taught how to read. The days had moved faster then, and the nightmares had been fewer.

 

The second winter had been easier and now, spring had arrived and with it black seals and great, valus whales. Ineya had insisted on accompanying the first boats sent out on hunts, though so far neither of them had had to put into practice their swimming skills. Jon found that he couldn’t bear to be on the same boat as her as he spent more time watching for her safety than for prey, but being on a seperate boat to her was worse. Tormund, who was more skilled at hunting in the mountains than the sea, had laughed then pulled him into a hug when he’d confessed his fears.

 

“She swims better than you, little crow. I thought I was going to jump in after you when you did your ice water swim,” he’d said, and Jon had worried a little less.

 

Garran had light hair, like her mother, and Jon sometimes half startled and thought she was Rickon, as he was as a child. Sometimes these flashes of his past brought him joy, and sometimes he found himself in a dark mood and not fit for company. He was in the latter frame of mind that day, though he couldn’t say what had set him off. He finished his chores in the village, told Garran where he was going, then walked up into the foothills of the Storrold mountains. Once he was past the caves where the hot springs bubbled the temperature dropped sharply, pulling his breath from his lungs. He walked for nearly an hour—Ghost ranging up to a mile ahead of him—until he realised that he was half-hoping to meet Tormund on his way back from a hunt. Annoyed with himself, he made his way back towards the village and out of the cold.

 

 

 

Jon sat in the hot spring when a great sloshing of water let him know that Tormund had arrived. He seated himself next to Jon, close enough for their thighs to be pressed together, and promptly threw an arm over his shoulders.

 

All the Wildlings were tactile: men and women kissed his cheek or forehead when he brought back a good kill. Little ones clung to his hand and begged to be swung up on his shoulders as he walked through the village; or they sat in his lap in the evenings and demanded stories of dragons and the Night King and of Arya.

 

Once, he’d been helping look for a little boy who’d wandering off into the snow one evening. He’d found the boy, cold but alive, hiding under the roots of a dead tree about a mile from camp. He’d handed him back to his father who’d clung to them both, sobbing his thanks into the boy’s hair and Jon’s shoulder. He’d never known that men could be so strong that they could cry and fear no consequence: no mockery, no censure. Every man, woman and child proved themselves strong day-in and day-out, eeking out an existence in the harshest lands ever known. He’d reasoned that they had no need to fear to be seen as weak, though he still found it hard to return their emotional honesty.

 

Their hands-on habits had also led to some confusion about whether or not he was being propositioned at any given moment. It was only made worse when Diagal, the father of the child he’d rescued, had laughingly explained that those who had done their duty and produced children were free to share their furs with whoever they wished. Jon had frowned, confused about the exact point he’d been making until Diagal had given up and gone to get a stick to draw in the dirt. His crude drawing of two men fucking had stayed with Jon for some time. Tormund had come over to see what the fuss was about and had ended up sitting on the floor, wiping tears away as he laughed. Then Diagal’s wife, Lessa, had joined them and demanded he draw two women. He’d gathered that anyone who wanted to fuck him would ask him plainly, so he allowed himself to enjoy the comfort of his adopted clan’s touch.

 

It helped him not at all with his current situation though. He wasn’t even sure when it had started, but now he was aware of Tormund in a way that was new to him. His thick thigh was pressed up against his own, and if he were to glance down he would be able to see Tormund’s cock, curled in a nest of red hair.

 

Jon swallowed hard and tried to think of something else.

 

“Are you listening to me, little crow? Or did the heat melt your thoughts?” Tormund asked, squeezing Jon closer to his side as he did so.

 

“I’m listening,” he lied.

 

“Oh? And what was I saying then?”

 

“Either something about the size of your kill or the size of your cock, I misremember,” Jon replied, and hoped the heat of the water hid his blush. Why must he say such things, he had no idea.

 

Tormund laughed, throwing his head back as he did so.

 

“Ah Jon, we have rubbed the shine of the South off you already.”

 

“I knew how to curse before I met you,” Jon said, feeling the need to defend himself.

 

“I swear to the old gods and the new, I once heard a Southerner call his prick his ‘little master.’”

 

It was Jon’s turn to laugh. Tormund tried to imitate the rounded vowels of the lords, but he usually just ended up sounding exactly like Tormund, but with a slightly higher-pitched voice. It was endlessly amusing and Jon was waiting for the right moment to point it out to him.

 

“I have never called my prick my ‘little master,” Jon said, grinning.

 

“Oh aye? What do you call it then?”

 

“Nothing!” Jon exclaimed, and then searched for a way to change the subject. Not only did he not want to talk about cocks while they were naked together, but when Tormund thought something was particularly funny he had a tendency to share it with whoever was nearest at the time. Usually at an incredibly loud volume.

 

“Now, you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, little crow, not all of us are as gifted as I am,” Tormund said, with every appearance of sincerity.

 

Jon put one hand over his face. “Please stop speaking about my cock.”

 

There was not a noise as such, but a sudden absence of noise that suggested that at least one person had stopped breathing, then the water on the other side of him sloshed as Diagal got in.

 

“I’d ask what you two are talking about,” he said as he made himself comfortable, “but I’m almost certain I’m happier not knowing.”

 

 

 

By the end of the week he was annoyed enough with himself that he went to the only place where he might get a little advice. Closest to the hot spring was a home like any other, except that the earth had been levelled flat and packed down so it was as solid as dirt could be. There were new groves that had been worn into the dirt just outside the door, and Jon first spent some time stamping them flat and smooth again, so the occupant of the dwelling could better move around.

 

Olirit was one of the most ancient beings he had ever met. She had been born missing her lower legs and could be often seen pushing herself around the village on a sledge of her own design. She was one of a few knots of free folk who had survived the Walkers, and she and a few others had made their way to their village after seeing the smoke from their fires. He’d grown up hearing stories about the evil wildlings beyond the Wall, of how they left their children out in the cold for a week to see which would survive. Yet here was Olirit, who had never walked, never hunted, and was no less worthy for it. He’d been ashamed of what he’d thought he’d known. Not only about the wildlings, but about himself. He’d thought his desire for Tormund was something shameful, like his brothers in the Watch, who had sometimes found furtive comfort from each other in the dark. In the light of day the same men had spat mockery at each other, or avoided each other all together.

 

He’d wished in the beginning that he could want men the same way he wanted women. That he could take a man to his bed, that what he’d felt when he’d seen Diagal’s crude drawing had been desire rather than discomfort. He could see now how old ideas and expectations had coloured his viewpoint.

 

“All your life you’ve seen yourself through the eyes of others,” Olirit had said to him, at the end of his second winter.

 

Jon must have looked surprised, as she’d laughed.

 

“You think we know nothing, Jon Snow? We know you were a bastard, then a king, we know you loved a wilding and a queen. Always by others you see yourself. You should look through your own eyes, once in a while. It’d do you some good, I reckon.”

 

So he had, and had realised that he loved Tormund. Not in the way he’d thought he did either: not as a brother, not as a friend. But as someone he could turn to for warmth in the night, as someone who he could stand to bare the vulnerable curve of his neck to. He’d thought he’d never have that again, that all had been lost to him when he’d murdered Dany, when he’d done the unforgivable. He should have faced her with a sword in his hand and Drogon at her back. That would have been honest, at least.

 

Olirit had been right; too often he’d seen himself through the eyes of others, too often he’d let himself act how others thought he should. She’d given him insight and he was grateful to her, he just didn’t know what to do with it.

 

“Oh, you two again,” was the only thing she said when he knocked and entered, Ghost on his heels.

 

He helped himself to some tea from the pot, having learnt quickly that to ask for permission first was a great insult. Food and drink was not something that could be owned by a person, so to ask for something to eat or drink was to suggest that someone was keeping what was needed by the whole community to themselves. There were some practical considerations of course: those who’d brought the hunt home ate first, as they were coldest and needed the energy. Then came the elderly, the sick and the children. The young and healthy ate last, though so far no-one had gone hungry.

 

“You in a misery again, are you?” Olirit asked, once he’d sat down. The chairs were all low to the floor, as she said it was boring enough having to crane her neck to speak to everyone when she was outside, so she wasn’t about to do the same thing in her own home.

 

“What? No!” Jon looked up from his tea to see if she was joking or not.

 

“You are, boy. I can tell.”

 

“I’m fine, I only came because you make better bark tea than I do.”

 

“Your direwolf could make better bark tea than you do.”

 

“And I enjoy being insulted,” Jon muttered into his tea.

 

“Well, you’ve come to the right place in that case,” Olirit announced, moving herself over to the kettle and pouring herself more tea.

 

“Garran keeps insisting she’s old enough to go foraging by herself and I think she’s wearing Tormund down,” Jon offered, which was true.

 

Olirit snorted. “Too soft, that man. You tell him he should wait until she can pull back a bow string by herself.”

 

Jon agreed to pass the message on - it was good advice. They talked about other topics for a while: new hunting grounds and the two babies that were due soon. Jon finished his tea and cleaned his cup, thanking Olirit for her time.

 

“Boy, I don’t know what troubles you but let me tell you this: keeping it inside won’t do you any good. Either say it or do it and you’ll find the right path from there.”

 

 

 

The prospect terrified him.

 

He had faced an army of Walkers, and had done so with Tormund at his side. Tormund been there when Rickon had died. He’d been the last person he’d said farewell to when he’d gone South and the first person to greet him when he’d come back. The idea that this might push him away was unbearable. And yet, Olirit was right: he couldn’t hold this feeling inside forever.

 

“What’s wrong?”  Tormund asked the second he entered their home to find Jon sitting at the table and waiting for him.

 

“Why must be something be wrong?”

 

“You have a face like a kicked puppy, for the first thing. And for the second, it smells as if you’ve been attempting to make tea, which I thought we’d all agreed you wouldn’t do after the last time.”

 

“There’s nothing wrong with my tea,” Jon countered. He hadn’t made _that_ much of a pig’s ear of it.

 

Tormund snorted, his back to Jon as he took off his cloak and gloves, changing from his boots into the soft shoes they all wore indoors. He sat down heavily in the chair opposite Jon, their tiny work table between them.

 

“Come on then, out with it,” he demanded, not looking in the least bit concerned.

 

Jon rubbed his damp palms on his trousers then put his hands on the table.

 

“I—,” he started. He tipped back in his chair for a moment, running his hands over his face, and then leant forward again.

 

“I just, I wanted to tell you—,” he stopped. Ridiculously, he could feel tears pricking at his eyes.

 

Large hands covered his own where they lay on the table, and when he looked up Tormund was looking at him with immense warmth.

 

“You know,” Jon realised.

 

“Aye, I know. I know _you_ , my little crow, so I know. Didn’t know if you knew though, so thought it best to wait til you told me.”

 

Jon opened his mouth and closed it again, at a complete loss.

 

Tormund just watched him, as serious as he usually was on the battlefield.

 

“It doesn’t have to change anything, not if you don’t want it to. I could sleep beside you from now until the world’s end and be content with that,” Tormund added.

 

Jon stared a little more, then got up from his chair and took a step that put him in almost in Tormund’s lap. He leant down and kissed him, tentatively at first, then less so. Tormund pulled back, just as Jon was starting to breathe a little heavier.

 

“You want this?” he asked.

 

Jon nodded, making an embarrassing sound that might have been a squawk as Tormund stood and put his hands under his thighs, lifting him as easily as he would a sword. Jon wrapped his legs around Tormund’s waist who grinned at him in triumph.

 

“Hello, little crow,” he said, taking two steps and tumbling them both down onto the furs in the corner of the room.

 

“What if the girls come back?”

 

“Then they’ll turn around and go back out again,” Tormund replied, already unlacing Jon’s shirt. He lay an open-mouthed kiss on Jon’s neck, and Jon promptly forgot what he’d been worrying about. The weight of Tormund over him was both a comfort and maddening: he wanted skin against his, he wanted to be closer. Jon started struggling with his own trousers, pushing them over his hips with his smallclothes.

 

Tormund loomed over him, grinning. “In a rush are we?”

 

“Shut up and take off your clothes,” Jon replied, in no mood to be made fun of.

 

Tormund huffed a laugh and kissed him, putting his hands over Jon’s and stilling them.

 

“Let me,” he said, and Jon nodded. Tormund started kissing his way down his chest, stopping to lick and bite at Jon’s nipples, causing him to gasp. Tormund reached down to strip Jon fully of his clothes, so that he lay naked under his gaze. Jon tried not to squirm as Tormund looked his fill. There was something vulnerable about being naked while Tormund still wore most of his layers.

 

“My pretty little crow,” he murmured, then took Jon’s cock into his mouth. Jon arched up in shock, then pushed his hands into Tormund’s thick hair, and tried desperately not to thrust. Tormund eventually pulled off him with a wet, obscene sound. It took Jon a couple of tries before he found his voice.

 

“I’m not going to last long if you keep doing that,” he admitted.

 

“Maybe I don’t want you to last,” Tormund replied, looking more smug than Jon had thought possible, “maybe I want you soft and spent as I fuck you.” He put his hand on Jon’s cock and gave it a rough squeeze as if to underscore his point.

 

Jon had no idea what his expression must have shown, but Tormund grinned brightly at him.

 

“I can see that’s an idea for next time,” he announced, and Jon could only nod. Tormund leaned down and kissed him again, then stood and quickly stripped himself of the rest of his clothing. Jon had seen Tormund naked many times—there were no taboos around nudity among the wildlings—and Jon had privately thought that if they lived in the South they would never bother with clothes again.

 

He had never really let himself look before, and he made no secret of studying the way Tormund’s muscles moved as he folded himself back over Jon, bracing himself on one thick forearm. He reached with the other to take them both in hand, watching Jon intently as he rubbed their cocks together, wet and warm from where Tormund had had him in his mouth.

 

It didn’t take long for Jon to start panting again, biting his lip so as not to make too much noise.

 

“Come on, Jon Snow, you can do better than that. I want to hear you,” Tormund said lowly, then bit his ear, and the shock of the pain pushed him over the edge. Tormund put his head down onto Jon’s shoulder and groaned, thrusting more roughly for a few seconds before coming all over Jon’s softening cock. He collapsed half on Jon, and Jon turned into his warmth. As his sweat started to cool he began to shiver. Tormund got up and went over to their washing bowl, rubbing himself down quickly before bringing a rag over to the bed. Jon reached for it but Tormund just gave him a chaste kiss.

 

“Let me,” he said, and Jon lay back while Tormund washed him down.

 

There was nothing overtly sexual in it, despite what had just occurred between them, and for a moment Jon felt the intimacy of it more keenly than he had the fucking itself. Tormund dropped the rag by the side of the bed, then pulled the furs over them both. They lay quietly for a while, Tormund’s breath evening out as he dozed. Jon managed to enjoy the moment for a few minutes before he started to worry that perhaps this did not mean to Tormund what it meant to him.

 

He turned more towards Tormund, trying to think of a reasonable way to ask the question.

 

“Do we—should we tell the girls?” he finally asked.

 

“I don’t think you need worry about that,” Tormund replied, his eyes still closed and his breath stirring Jon’s hair.

 

Jon frowned.

 

“You were loud,” Tormund added.

 

“I was not,” Jon replied, though in truth he couldn’t be sure.

 

He could just about see that Tormund had opened his eyes and was grinning at him.

 

“I imagine at the next council meeting our nearest neighbours will be asking for help moving their homes further away from ours.”

 

“You were loud too!” Jon countered as he rolled them over, trying to cover Tormund’s mouth with his hand, but he was having none of it. On their feet Jon was quicker so had a fighting chance, but like this Tormund had the upper hand. Tormund rolled them again until Jon was underneath him, only just balanced on the edge of the bed.

 

“They’ll have to pass a new law,” Tormund was saying, while Jon struggled under him, breathless with laughter—with love. “Jon Snow must be gagged when he’s being fucked.”

 

Jon only managed to shut him up by covering Tormund’s mouth with his own, which turned out to be an effective way of silencing him.

 

He could feel Tormund grinning even as they kissed.

 

\/

 

_"Some people say home is where you come from. But I think it’s a place you need to find, like it’s scattered and you pick pieces of it up along the way."_

Katie Kacvinsky, _Awaken_

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found on [Tumblr](https://xpityx.tumblr.com), but if you're just looking for writing updates then I use my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/xpityxfanfic) for those.


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